


Knowing someone's body better than your own

by TheHoardingPuffin



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Tim Drake, Bisexual Dick Grayson, Coming Out, Crushes, Discovery of Sexuality, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Not Canon Compliant, Podfic Welcome, Tim Drake is awkward and crushes are weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28894677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHoardingPuffin/pseuds/TheHoardingPuffin
Summary: Asexuality - noun - the quality or characteristic of having no sexual feelings or desires.Tim Drake is 97% sure he is asexual. He decides to talk to his older brother about it.
Relationships: Background Dick Grayson/Wally West - Relationship, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 151





	Knowing someone's body better than your own

**Author's Note:**

> Hi folks!  
> I haven't written for the rest of the Batfamily yet - just for Jason and Dick, and mostly in the Titans TV Series context - which needed changing, so here, have a fluffy awkward short OS about Tim. I always headcanon-ed him as ace-spec, and based most of his experiences on mine (who's projecting onto fictional characters? Not me - except I totally am), however, nobody's experiences are the same, so some ace folks might identify with this and some might not. Either way, I hope you enjoy and as always, kudos and comments are food for heart and soul of a writer!  
> Loads of love,  
> Lotta

The first time Tim Drake had a crush on somebody, he was thirteen, which apparently was pretty late, if his classmates were to be believed. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole thing at first. The odd sensation of his stomach dropping and tingling, combined with his throat getting weirdly tight, had him thinking he was sick at first. Except that logic told him that was not possible. He didn’t have food allergies either, so that couldn’t be the reason either – short and simple, only one possibility remained. He had a crush. Well, great.

Tim didn’t have time for that sort of thing. Seriously, whoever claimed that having a crush was a good thing clearly had to be daft or not have an own life, because if anything, having a crush was annoying. And distracting.

Thankfully, he got over it rather quickly once the girl in question, Anna, a pretty blonde with green eyes, started dating a kid from another class, and Tim was glad to just forget the whole thing.

The second time Tim Drake had a crush on someone, he was fifteen, had just become Robin and really couldn’t deal with that sort of distraction. This time, the reason for the metaphorical butterflies in his guts was a girl from the neighbourhood – as much as you could talk about a neighbourhood if houses were few and far apart where he lived, anyhow – with a long brown braid and freckles, and for Heaven’s sake, Tim had only ever _seen_ her, not _spoken_ to her, didn’t even know her _name_ , for the love of God! And still, she managed to send his mind into a whirl. Tim hated it. He pushed it down and instead threw himself head-first into the job of being Batman’s sidekick, because any distraction was welcome now, and besides, fighting crime was endlessly more important than a random nameless beautiful girl… and the time when he was at home and not fighting crime in a mask and red suit, he decided to dive deep into schoolwork and research, to keep his mind occupied. Two weeks later, the crush had faded into nothingness, and Tim had a relatively good idea of the relationship structure between Bruce Wayne/Batman and Dick Grayson/Nightwing and the dead boy, Jason Todd, and everyone else who was sort of stuck in some sort of familiar relationship with the Gotham Bat. Because drawing relationship-nets was a very effective way of keeping your mind occupied.

Logically, Tim knew what it meant to be horny. Logically, he knew that it was normal, and that everyone experienced it, as everyone experienced crushes and love and a million other things. Logically, he even knew the biological reasons behind arousal and how exactly that particular sensation was created within the human body.

Logically, he also knew that biological abnormalities existed, that love and desire and such things were not just one thing, but fluid, logically – still, he couldn’t help the thoughts of _something is wrong with you_ that crept into his head and grew louder and louder every time he had a new crush, or saw a couple in public, or read something, or watched something on TV that involved romance.

It was nothing, probably.

He probably was, as stupid as he found the expression, a _late bloomer_.

Hadn’t found the right person yet – that was how people said it, right?

Yes, that was how it had to be. He wasn’t abnormal, just late to the party. That was okay. Tim was more than okay with that, actually – and besides, he didn’t have time for that kind of thoughts anyhow, with being Robin and the Titans and the Young Justice teams around and all.

And with a ten-year-old kid turning up.

And with a person they had all believed to be fucking dead coming back.

Tim was very content that life distracted him from crushes and whatever for a while.

Someone on the newspaper had decided to dub Batman and Robin (Damien, not Tim) and Nightwing and Red Hood and Red Robin and Batgirl and whoever else was involved with them in the business of fighting crime in an unconventional way, a _cauldron_ – the way a group of bats was normally called. Tim chuckled to himself about that because honestly, like, half of them weren’t even bat-themed, so technically, _flock_ would have been a better name, or _murmuration_ , but oh well – he didn’t mind the idea of all of them being family.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Because honestly, they already _were_. With everything that came with family. Bruce being the tired Dad nobody actually listened to, Alfred being the only one aside from Tim with more than three braincells, Damian, who dragged in any cat, bat, duck – a cow, for the love of God! – and other animals he found injured in the ditch, Jason dropping in whenever he liked… it was nice. And it provided plenty of distraction from weird thoughts and worries.

However, it also came with one disadvantage – less privacy. Hell, some members of the family didn’t even care much for their _own_ privacy!

Which lead to the very awkward instance where Tim, after working a long shift (longer than he should have, with more coffee than he should have), stumbled back upstairs and heard very specific and unmistakable noises from Dick’s bedroom.

Tim froze on the spot, his face grew very hot and his hands very cold and his mind was screaming for him to _move_ – and there was also a small, confused voice in the back of his head that murmured _I didn’t know Wally was visiting?_

For what felt like a half-eternity, Tim stood in the hallway, trying very hard not to listen and to convince himself to _walk the fuck away_ – and then, suddenly, he was back in his own room, shaking like a leaf, his face still hot and hands tingling weirdly, and with the very important desire to never think about this ever again…

He curled up in his bed, pillow over his head, and put on headphones. Podcast… podcast, yes… shaky fingers started a new episode of Critical Role and Tim closed his eyes, forcing the fresh memory of _those_ sounds from his _brother_ and his brother’s _boyfriend_ out of his head.

YouTube recommended videos were an odd thing, really. Either the videos made perfect sense with what a user watched normally, or it was the direct opposite. This one was definitely the second kind – Tim had had YouTube up on his laptop in the background, not even really paying attention as he cleaned up his room, when the auto-play jumped to some kind of pop-ish song that was very much not Tim’s usual taste. He turned towards the laptop, ready to skip, but something stopped him. The lyrics weirdly resonated with him, in a way no song ever had before.

“ _Don't you want somebody to never let you go? Knowing someone's body better than your own… Don't you want a family with a white picket fence? Tell me when's the wedding, the names of all your kids…_ ”

Tim froze, staring at the screen and the video and not at all sure how to take this song. All he knew was that if felt right, a song that rang true to his core and – suddenly he felt both numb and tingly in his chest and he found himself sitting down at his desk and scrolling down into the comments of the video, eyes widening as he read and read and read… then, with his face burning and his mouth feeling oddly dry, he typed a new word into Google. A definition popped up.

**asexuality**

**/eɪsɛksʃʊˈalɪtiː/**

**_noun_ ** **\- the quality or characteristic of having no sexual feelings or desires.**

“Dick?”

His older brother was sprawled out on the couch, one leg tugged under his chin, the other stretched to the side (not the weirdest position Tim had ever found his older brother in), and looked up when Tim called his name.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

Tim took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around himself. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Dick nodded, un-pretzled himself and sat up straight, patting the couch cushion next to himself. “C’mere. What’s the matter?”

Tim sat down and pulled his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees.

“I… I wanted to tell you first, because… ‘cause you probably would understand the best.”

Dick hummed and nodded, looking at him with a half curious, half worried expression.

Tim pursed his lips. He felt sort of sick. He exhaled slowly, closed his eyes…

“Ithinkimightbeasexual.”

Dick, to his credit, did not laugh at that display of verbal diarrhea.

“What?

“I… I think… Ithinkimaybeasexual.”

“Tim, slowly!” Dick’s voice was soft, and he gently touched Tim’s shoulder and gave it a tiny squeeze. “Take a deep breath, and try it again, slower, okay?”

Tim nodded, took a deep breath and forced himself to say it again, one word after the other. “I think I may be asexual?”

Dick nodded. “Okay. Now I got it. Thank you for telling me, Tim.”

The sick feeling turned into warmth and Tim almost collapsed against his brother in relief.

“I’m 97% sure”, he said. “I thought about it a lot.”

Dick wrapped his arm around him and rested his head against Tim’s. “For how long?”  
“Like… three years? Almost?”

“Hmm.” Dick chuckled. “Anything tip you off?”

Tim nodded and felt his face heat up. “I… maybe… I may have heard you and Wally and… sort of… bolted? And felt sick?”

“Oh. Oops.” Dick sounded only barely embarrassed. “I’ll try to make sure you won’t hear it again, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No… it’s… I mean, that’s your thing, really.” Tim swallowed, picked at his sleeve. “I… it’s not… I’m not sex-repulsed, I don’t think, just… It’s weird!”  
“What is weird?”

“Sex!” Tim’s voice way pressed and shrill at the word. “It’s… it’s just weird.”

Dick laughed again, but it wasn’t in a cruel way. “How is it weird?”

“I… it seems like a waste of time. I mean, logically I know why people… do it, but… they could use their time much more efficiently!”  
“And how?”

“I don’t know? Cuddling… eating cake – I don’t know!”

“Cuddling or eating cake?”

“Maybe.” Tim shrugged and nestled a bit closer to his older brother. He felt a lot lighter, now that he had told someone.

**Author's Note:**

> Nobody cares, but I still wanted to say it: "Sex seems like a waste of time! People could be using their time more efficiently - by cuddling or eating cake" was the exact phrase I came out with to my friends, and I will forever be proud of that because that's literally the most ace thing I could have said.


End file.
